The question, Clete, is that if this President can grant exemptions and waivers of ACA requirements ex post facto to Unions, big campaign donors and other supporters, why can the next President not grant such to EVERYBODY? The illegality of such exemptions and waivers has already been whitewashed, so why not keep up with the corruption?

This is why taking back the Senate is important. An opposing Legislature can begin rolling back Executive powers assumed without benefit of Law, and even some granted by legislation such as the War Powers Act. What will be interesting will be seeing if they have the political gonads to do so.

Funny how all the illegalities are not brought front, and center for all to see and acted on. Just soaring rhetoric, allegation and high hopes.

US unemployment rate plummets to 6.3% in April; 288,000 jobs added - Business - The Boston Globe

Wall Street got fatter too!

Americans don't care about that. If we go by this website they are more concerned about passing drug tests at work. Something I've never seen in my life in my country.

NK, there are probably many things that others outside of America don't understand about us. The same is true of the reverse. That' a given. In truth all of us grapple with the reality we find ourselves in despite the perspective, or the coffee we drink in the morning :D

Needless to say, some are a lot noisier than others. :) but NONE are better than the other, just different.

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Originally Posted by talaniman

Funny how all the illegalities are not brought front, and center for all to see and acted on. Just soaring rhetoric, allegation and high hopes.

US unemployment rate plummets to 6.3% in April; 288,000 jobs added - Business - The Boston Globe

Wall Street got fatter too!

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In what fantasy world is that number even remotely accurate? When the U-6 number which shows who is really unemployed rather than just have benefits to collect on, is basically double that. At 12.3%. But even that doesn't take into consideration that the labor participation rate is lower than its been since 1978.

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization


And for the Labor participation rate

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data


And

LFPR FALLS TO LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1978 - Business Insider

Yup, unemployment is going down as per those stats.

THey also show it was WAY better when Bush was in charge on its worst month... than the best month under Obama.


A Lot more people actually had jobs under Bush... hell more people had jobs under Jimmy Carter than actually have jobs under Obama. Despite a larger population today.

92,594,000 Americans age 16 and over not in the labor force equates to a 6.3% unemployment rate. That would make the adult population of the U.S. 1,469,746,031. Either the Census Bureau was WAAAAYY wrong or the numbers are fishy.

Mark Twain said there are 3 kinds of lies. Lies, Dam Lies, and Statistics.

Conspiracies abound.

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Originally Posted by Catsmine

92,594,000 Americans age 16 and over not in the labor force equates to a 6.3% unemployment rate. That would make the adult population of the U.S. 1,469,746,031. Either the Census Bureau was WAAAAYY wrong or the numbers are fishy.

Mark Twain said there are 3 kinds of lies. Lies, Dam Lies, and Statistics.

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Cat's unemployement and participation arn't two sides of the same coin, you could have 0% unemployment and yet a low participation rate. You have to know what the statistics are used for and it certainly isn't to inform the uninformed.
You want to know which way the economy is headed have a look at the job vacancies and job advertised statistics

United States Job Vacancies | Actual Data | Forecasts | Calendar

what this says is the job market has firmed but not grown significantly

If you look at the participation rate you find, fairly obviously, is that it is the men who are dropping out more strongly than the women and this could be structural as the traditional forms of employment are in transition. Also the participation rate is higher today than it was in 1950 when you had 90% of men participating because of the number of women participating so dispite all the carping things arn't that bad over the long term. The recent fall off is of concern

The claimed unemployment number is only the percent of people who had QUALIFYING jobs that are collecting unemployment Benefits.

What that average person does not know is that tossed around unemployment number does not count the self employed who went out of business... because they don't qualify to collect unemployment benefits... it also doesn't count the people who work as contractors, but are out of work who also don't qualify for benefits, because they are considered self employed.

The U-6 number actually does include those groups, so there is actually 12.3% of the people right now who were working that are currently unemployed... the fact is only 6.3% qualify for benefits so Obama doesn't care that the rest are unemployed...

NEITHER number take into consideration the people who stopped trying to get jobs....mooch off relatives or went on welfare or disability, or people that were in two income homes that are now one income homes. Those reflect in the lower labor participation rate.

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Originally Posted by paraclete

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Cat's unemployement and participation arn't two sides of the same coin, you could have 0% unemployment and yet a low participation rate. You have to know what the statistics are used for and it certainly isn't to inform the uninformed.
You want to know which way the economy is headed have a look at the job vacancies and job advertised statistics

United States Job Vacancies | Actual Data | Forecasts | Calendar

what this says is the job market has firmed but not grown significantly

If you look at the participation rate you find, fairly obviously, is that it is the men who are dropping out more strongly than the women and this could be structural as the traditional forms of employment are in transition. Also the participation rate is higher today than it was in 1950 when you had 90% of men participating because of the number of women participating so dispite all the carping things arn't that bad over the long term. The recent fall off is of concern

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Sometimes sardonicism is wasted. You will find those two numbers all over American media, the bias of the individual source determining which is the headline.

yes I know your comment was intended to be sarcastic in the tradition of Colvert but we mustn't give over to losing focus just because the media is crap . Do you think the media wants to report that nothing has really changed, as I said media is crap, that the place is just as boring as it was 50 years ago and that what we are seeing is just a boil on the arse of progress.

we need to get used to it, people are getting older and a participation rate above 50% is probably good news and 63% certainly is. Now if the media were properly educated in understanding statistics instead of being trained in writing fiction you would see a more positive picture. Right now all they want to do is beat the government over the head